Spontaneity vs. Scheduling

Which sounds more romantic?

You walk in the door, and suddenly your lover is there, dressed in the sexiest outfit you’ve ever seen. You kiss, your hands fumble at each other’s clothes with frantic haste until you’re both naked. The counter (or is it the table?) is cleared in a crash of things that don’t matter in the face of your lust for each other. As your bodies merge in sexual union your eyes meet and widen in perfectly synchronized orgasm…

Or:

It’s Tuesday, which means sex, so you leave work a little early to get home in time to shower, ignoring the Boss’s frown. You see your partner in the bedroom, making sure that there is lube on the nightstand and a towel draped over the headboard for cleanup. Checking your watch before jumping in the shower, you mentally go over how long it will take to wash, groom yourself, and make your hair into some semblance of sexiness before the planned “bedtime” of 7pm. Thankfully it wasn’t your turn to take the kids to see their aunt, but that means getting up extra early to pick them up for school in the morning…

Your answer means…absolutely nothing. The fact is, both scenarios are perfectly fine. The problem may lie if you expect the first scenario to be the way sex “should” be. That type of spontaneous sex is romanticized by Hollywood and novels and even advertising, but they conveniently leave out the awkward bits. Does the bra not want to unsnap, and you’ve not watched Stefanos explain how? What kind of safer sex practices have you agreed on, and are they handy? What if one partner needs lube, or there’s a soft cock that needs some encouragement? For that matter, when you get older, there can be many other factors, and if you haven’t watched Joan Price’s videos on sex and aging your expectations are likely to come to crashing disappointment or worse, regret.

Most of all, though, there is the danger in any long-term committed relationship of falling into the kind of rut where sex is taken for granted. Sometimes when you seem to have all the time in the world with each other, other things begin to be more important than sex – never overtly, of course. Who wants to say “Walking the dog is more important than making love”? But if the dog needs walking, it’s easy to simply put off that urge to have spontaneous sex a little more. Then the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing comes up, and before you realize it is late at night with an early workday on the horizon.

It’s for situations like this that Dr. Ruthie, a clinical therapist, has developed several tools for re-igniting the spark of sexuality in your marriage. One of these tools is to actually set aside a time for dating and sex. It’s almost always possible to carve some kind of time out of your schedule if you really want to.

That’s the second part of this special sexy time, Dr. Ruthie emphasizes in her series on “Dating Your Spouse.” There’s an entire clip about “Making It a Priority” – and that goes for sex as much as “date night.” At first it may seem strange to schedule sex, but simply ask yourself: would you rather have it on a schedule, or not at all?

Of course, one hopes it is the most fun item on your to-do list. You can help build up your anticipation of the event using some of the techniques Graydancer describes in his “TwoPlay: the Art of Making Out” series. “Technology is your friend!” he explains. “Use text messages, emails, even sexy songs or voicemails during the day to prime the pump and get your lover and yourself excited about the upcoming sexy time!” Sexological body worker Jaiya takes it even further, setting up “Sex Labs” where you both come to it with a list of things to try out – no pressure, just a fun plan to do some new things, have some new sensations, and increase the connection between the two of you.

That’s not to say that the scheduled sexy time is going to eliminate the possibility of spontaneous lovemaking. What it will do is get you both more comfortable with the way your bodies work sexually, and enable you to create environments more conducive to spontaneous sex. That may mean condoms in the bathroom for shower sex, or an extra pillow on the couch just in case you need it for your back as you’re writhing with your lover on the floor.

Perhaps the ideal is a mixture – scheduled sexy times to make sure you have that intimacy no matter how crazy the rest of life gets, and the flexibility of time, body, and mind to pounce on your lover when the mood strikes. PassionateU is filled with clips that can help you and your partner not only re-ignite the spark but keep it burning strong and sexy.

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